This site is best viewed using Mozilla Firefox browser.

Veteran Affairs

2010-07-01 12:39:00

Kansas-Nebraska Territory

What can you tell me about the Kansas-Nebraska Territory?

Answer: A little more than 300 years ago, when the American revolution was still new. No settlers had crossed the Mississippi River into Missouri then the Missouri River into Kansas, and when railroads were very scarce... A simple patch of ground a few miles north of Omaha was the site of the largest military post in America. But Kansas was nothing.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition chose to cross Nebraska, not Kansas... The land that is now Nebraska was once a part of the territory of Spain and later of France, and was peacefully acquired by the United States in 1803 when the French Emperor Napoleon offered the vast Louisiana Territory to the U.S. for $15,000,000. For three cents an acre, the fledgling American Republic doubled its size and acquired what would eventually form all or part of 15 states. Kansas was also part of the Louisiana Purchase. President Thomas Jefferson proposed an expedition to be undertaken by the U.S. Army. In a confidential message to Congress he stated: "An intelligent officer, with ten or twelve chosen men, fit for the enterprise and willing to undertake it, might explore the whole line even to the Western Ocean, have conferences with the natives on the subject of commercial intercourse, get admission from them for our traders, and return with the information acquired in the course of two summers." This would literally be a journey into the unknown, and chosen to lead the romantically titled "Corps of Discovery" were Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. So why not Kansas? For the next two years, four months and 10 days the Corps of Discovery rowed, pulled, walked and paddled nearly 8,000 miles to the Pacific Ocean and back. They had found the way west and helped to start America on an adventure. Kansas was to the south. After the Lewis and Clarke expedition. Life for soldiers was probably very tedious. The soldiers not only raised their own food, but did all the carpentry, brick making, blacksmithing and stone quarrying. They ran the schools and gristmills, their wives and widows did the washing-much like the Roman legions, the American Army was very much involved in the spread of civilization and industry throughout the long frontier period. Yet, these were soldiers and their primary goal was to keep the peace with Indians. Following and between these ventures the fort returned to its regular frontier garrison duties of military drills, patrolling, work details and farming, and most importantly, protecting and advancing the American fur trade. The soldiers built a lot of Kansas. The soldiers built the Kansas Soldiers Home at Ft. Dodge, Kansas. Complaints were made with Congress and the Department of the Army. They were building all of Ft. Dodge with expensive stone not wood. It had to be pointed out to the complainers and U.S.Congress that Ft. Dodge was being built from stone because that building material was all over the land. Very few trees were seen in the landscape. General Henry Leavenworth founded the still active Ft. Leavenworth, north of Kansas City, home of the Command and General Staff School. Major Bennet Riley was a hero in the Mexican War, and Fort Riley in Kansas was named for him. Ft. Scott in southeastern Kansas was named for General Scott. Most of the military names are obvious, civilian names are a little bit harder. A lot of American Indian names were also used. Some of the names were duplicated from state to state. I was born in a little Illinois river town called New Boston, there was also a New Boston, MO, and another one in Kansas. Names from your childhood made people comfortable and familiar. New Boston’s Illinois only claim to fame, was: It was laid out by (or surveyed by) Abraham Lincoln in the 1800’s 1854-1861 were a turbulent times in Kansas territory. The Civil War actually began in "bleeding" Kansas ten years before Fort Sumter. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 established the territorial boundaries of Kansas and Nebraska and legal settlement. It allowed the residents of these territories to decide by popular vote whether their state would be free or slave. This concept of self-determination was called popular sovereignty. In Kansas, people on all sides of this controversial issue flooded the territory, trying to influence the vote in their favor. Three distinct political groups occupied Kansas: Pro-slavers, Free-staters and Abolitionists. Rival territorial governments, election fraud, and squabbles over land claims all made up part of the violence of this era. Locally, trouble began in the summer of 1856 when a group of about 30 pro-slavery settlers from South Carolina arrived in Bourbon County. It was suspected that they were sponsored by the Southern Emigrant Aid Society. Violence broke out immediately, giving Bleeding Kansas to the world. In 1861 Kansas entered the Union as a free state on January 29th. This era became forever known as "Bleeding Kansas. Kansas saw some action in South Eastern Kansas, other than that an occasional raid was all they had to endure. The main raid was by Quantrill on the city of Lawrence, KS. I’ll try to cover that episode next month. Frank Bergquist graduated from Eddyville, IA, high school in 1958. After graduation, he entered the Army, serving 20 years in Missouri, Maryland, New Mexico, Germany, Iowa, Turkey, Kansas, S.E. Asia, and finally retiring in 1978 in Louisiana. Before retiring, Frank was assigned as an ROTC instructor at WSU and Kemper Military School until 1974. In 1978 he served as the Non-Commissioned officer in charge of operations at Fort Polk, LA. He has served as the Veterans Counselor (DVOP) with the Kansas Job Service Center National Service Office, with the Disabled American Veterans at the VA Regional Office in Wichita; Veterans Employment and Training Coordinator with the US Dept. of Labor at Ft. Riley, KS; Service Coordinator with Cerebral Palsy Research Foundation; Dept Adjutant-Treasurer and the Dept. Executive Director Dept. of Kansas Disabled American Veterans; and past President of the Wichita Civil War Round Table. Currently he is doing graduate work as an instructor in Genealogy and Military History at Wichita State and Kansas State Universities, and is the CEO for the Disabled American Veterans Thrift Stores in Wichita, KS. Bergquist has an AA from Kemper Military School and College from Boonville, MO. and a BGS from Wichita State University. He can be reached by phone at (316) 262-6501 or e-mail at davtswceo@sbcglobal.net and is located at 5455 E. Central, Wichita, KS. 67208.